NailO
NailO is a wearable input device in the form of a fingernail art sticker. It works as a miniaturized trackpad that can connect to your mobile devices; it also enables wearers to customize the device to fit the wearer’s personal style. NailO was created by Cindy Hsin-Liu Kao of the Living Mobile group and Artem Dementyev of the Responsive Environments group.
Press about NailO:
NailO turns your fingernail into a tiny trackpad (CNET)
Thumbnail track pad (MIT News)
This Adorable Thumbnail Trackpad Could Actually Be Useful (Wired)
Unique in the Shopping Mall: On the reidentifiability of credit card metadata
In a new study published in Science, a group of researchers from the Human Dynamics group led by student Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye, found that "anonymized" credit card users could be reidentified with just a few pieces of information. The researchers analyzed transactions made by 1.1 million people in 10,000 stores over three months. Although the information had been “anonymized” by removing names and account numbers, each purchase made by the same credit card was tagged with the same random identification number. Using this number, the researchers were able to use just three more pieces of data—the date, location, and price of each transaction—to reidentify 90 percent of individual consumers.
Learn more about this project in the following press coverage:
Privacy Challenges (MIT News)
With a Few Bits of Data, Researchers Identify ‘Anonymous’ People (The New York Times)
Analysis Suggests That Making Data Anonymous is Not Enough to Protect Consumers (Nature)
Your Shopping Habits are One in a Million, Literally (The Verge)
Expansion Microscopy
In a new study published in Science, researchers from Ed Boyden's Synthetic Neurobiology group detail a new technique that allows them to use a polymer commonly found in diapers to physically enlarge brain tissue samples, enabling them to get high-resolution images of cellular activities. Learn more about how expansion microscopy works in this video, and explore the research and process in-depth at http://expansionmicroscopy.org/.
Details on expansion microscopy and interviews with the researchers can be found in the following press coverage:
The New York Times | Expansion Microscopy Stretches Limits of Conventional Microscopes
MIT News | MIT Team Enlarges Brain Samples, Making Them Easier to Image
WBUR | Diaper Power: Expanding Gel Could Help Scientists See Brain Workings
The Boston Globe | Instead of Zooming In, MIT Scientists Blow Up Brain Cells
